Any silver linings to your Hurricane Irma experience?

[FreeFlyNole]

1st, I lost an oak tree I hated, but because of city requirements for hardwoods on properties I couldn't cut it down, now I can replace it with a palm.

2nd, I proved some serious redneck ingenuity works. I have way too may refrigeration units, I have a double fridge/freezer in the kitchen, two 60 bottle wine fridges, a summer kitchen fridge and ice maker, and an upstairs built in fridge and freezer in the media room, then a 19 cubic foot freezer in the garage.

What I did is I re-organized the food in all the freezers packing it in, then in the unused space I packed in either gallon jugs of water or small water bottles in every space available so that they'd freeze, then I duct taped the doors closed all the way around, so there would be as little seep as possibe and no opening the whole time the power was off. We ended up with the power off from late afternoon Sunday - Thursday at noon. When the power came back on I opened all the freezers to check and all of them still had the frozen ice and frozen food. I saved THOUSANDS in meat and seafood with a little Redneck genius. I would highly reccomend it if you don't have a generator or you will be away.

Any other silver linings out there? Maybe you lost your wife's cat you hated?

 

[helmetnuts]

Looks like the cover to my smoker blew off and the digital panel got fried so I'm getting the Bradley I have been wanting for a while now for Christmas

 

[ericram]

For Tallahassee, there is a guy trading a goat for a generator on Craigslist. That's all I got.

 

[travnole]

My tailgating setup now has a generator.

Pretty much have a boat on call anytime I go to St. Pete due to allowing and old friend and his wife /kids evacuate to us. They live right on the water and a 25' Calcutta out back. My in laws live down there so gonna cash in that chip a ton.

 

[Bartdog]

got to talk to a bunch of my neighbors I rarely get a chance to speak to.
Also...nothing like the threat of impending death and destruction for inspiration.

 

[FSUTribe76]

Yep, five day weekend with my parents and one set of brother and sister in law watching movies and Netflix and playing Board, Switch and XBone games in my new not quite yet open facility in Panama City. Had three 75 inch 4K TVs to play with and a 16 ft indoor shuffleboard/bowling table to chillax with. Other than everyone being nervous about the possibility of damage to our homes (fortunately all was good for the most part, my parents have to get two trees professionally removed and my BIL and SIL were without power for about a week in St Pete but I had no damage in Tally).

 

[Gonolz]

I spent a couple nights of my evacuation in Biloxi and won $1,800 playing craps. That should just about cover the damage I suffered.

Wish I would have thought to do your redneck water freezing. I ended up throwing out a bunch of meat and fish from the freezer.

 

[skramer100]

Have an outdoor canopy that I despise for our outdoor living room. Had to take it down when it was heading for Miami. Accidentally broke one of the arms so it never has to go up. I like portable shade so getting one of those massive umbrellas that covers the patio but can close when you don't need it. Patio looks so much more inviting and bigger now. It's like I trimmed the patios pubes.

 

[ggmike1992]

I only lost power for 9 hours. Sure beats the 3 days I had to endure last year. I was expecting a repeat of that.

 

[OrlandNole]

As of last night, my parents (Gainesville area) still don't have power. Hope it's back by the time I get there tonight or we're road tripping to Free's house.

 

[squiffynole]

I have 8 crates of water in the garage - that should cover us for a few months.

 

[PoopandBoogers]

Was lucky enough to fly out to SanFran for work and miss most of the power outage. Got a hotel on the beach in Pacifica with weather perfect in the cool 50s and 60s. (Sidenote- SF is super expensive, run of the mill HIE was $350 per night, but work paid for it so zfg). Got to see all the touristy sites like alcatraz, golden gate, presidio, lombard st, wharf, chinatown and ate killer calmex burrito, sourdough, thai and chinese. Met a crazy assed group of 10 or so Brits and drank the last night away with a bunch of new friends in random beach bars, scaring and annoying uber drivers along the way.

Stuffed freezer with a case of water and 3 gallons jugs Sat and when I got back late Thurs, power was back on and ice still in freezer and meats still rock solid. Nothing restaurant wise was back open, so I cracked a beer and had supreme Primo Thin frozen pizza that survived and that I was pretty damn thankful to be eating at that point.

View from my room damn sure beat the alternative

 

[EveryoneBleedsGarnet]

I got a sweet new chainsaw and will be having an epic bonfire once I get around to cleaning up my 11 acre wasteland.

 

[mcgrawfsu]

I have a row of Areca palms for privacy on the edge of my property line that runs about 300 feet. They needed to be cleaned out due to all of the dead fronds that have built up over the past few years. The wind direction blew everything onto the street rather than my yard. The County had them cleaned up the next day. Saved me a couple hundred bucks from having the landscaper do it for me.

 

[FSUTribe76]

Was lucky enough to fly out to SanFran for work and miss most of the power outage. Got a hotel on the beach in Pacifica with weather perfect in the cool 50s and 60s. (Sidenote- SF is super expensive, run of the mill HIE was $350 per night, but work paid for it so zfg). Got to see all the touristy sites like alcatraz, golden gate, presidio, lombard st, wharf, chinatown and ate killer calmex burrito, sourdough, thai and chinese. Met a crazy assed group of 10 or so Brits and drank the last night away with a bunch of new friends in random beach bars, scaring and annoying uber drivers along the way.

Stuffed freezer with a case of water and 3 gallons jugs Sat and when I got back late Thurs, power was back on and ice still in freezer and meats still rock solid. Nothing restaurant wise was back open, so I cracked a beer and had supreme Primo Thin frozen pizza that survived and that I was pretty damn thankful to be eating at that point.

View from my room damn sure beat the alternative

I stayed at that exact hotel (I believe) in Pacifica the day I ultimately ended up proposing to my wife. We were staying there when we got a call at about 5 AM saying we had to evacuate because of the tsunami coming in from the earthquakes that damaged the nuclear reactor at Fukushima. So we had to get up early and evacuate. We took some early morning pictures of the California crazies oblivious to what was going on (some surfers over by the rocks and people doing TaiChi on the beach). And then we were officially kicked out maybe around 7 or so by the local PD so we drove down California Highway 1 for 20-30 miles or so until we came across a really tall cliff on a point overlooking the Pacific I think around Gray Whale Cove and watched the tide get sucked out leaving behind a bunch of confused harbor seals and sea lions and then watched the tsunami roll in while eating leftover sourdough from Boudin and drinking Anchor Steam beer for brekkie.

Later that day grabbed some great CalMex for early lunch in Santa Cruz, stopped off at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for four hours or so, drove down to Pfeiffer State Park in Big Sur for sunset but stopped off at Bixby Bridge along the way to propose. I got a nice round of applause from the other tourists gathered around the vista point for Bixby Bridge.

 

[RangerNole]

Was supposed to move my son to college and spend a few days at Universal the week Irma hit. Obviously plans changed as we had to wait till Irma cleared central Florida and then finished hitting us. This made our time line for completing the move 3 days instead of a week. When we got to Winter Park it was go go go; needed all the things for a new apartment. We drove all over Orlando, Winter Park, Oviedo and Maitland. The silver lining was all the tolls were suspended, saved a little money and time.

 

[nolejam99]

The Braves were giving free tickets to evacuees so I got to see a game and check out the new Suntrust Park. Really liked the stadium and the surrounding "Battery" area

 

[SeaPA]

I did find out one thing that was quite surprising to me; the world's largest restaurant company has the worst disaster-preparedness plan around. By about 8 pm Sunday, my entire town had lost power. I mean entire - every house, every business. It was still out for pretty much everyone until around noon Tuesday, when they got power restored to most of the business areas (with a few exceptions) and most of the residential area. By Wednesday, almost all of the businesses had reopened, though some only to a limited extent (grocers had limited frozen/refrigerated items, and some restaurants had limited menus, for example). There was one glaring exception - McDonalds. They didn't reopen until this past Sunday - a week after they'd closed pre-storm. The McDonalds in the nearest town (9 miles south), was the same - closed Sunday afternoon pre-storm, reopened the following Sunday.

I was very surprised that it took them so long to reopen. Every other restaurant in town (from the other major chains, to the smaller chains, to the local mom & pop places) was opened by either Tuesday or Wednesday. Every store and every office I could see was also opened by Wednesday, at the latest. But the biggest restaurant company in the world took a full week to get back in business.

To tie it to this thread, I didn't have to go sit in the drive-thru line for 30 minutes to get the boys some of their crap food, only to get home & find out they'd screwed up our order.

 

[Bill From Tampa]

The fact that the neighborhood is still standing in tact and all our jobs are still around and that Mrs BFT mother's mobile home suffered zero damage makes it the best possible outcome there possibly could be. The power outage, cleaning up the debris, moving things out of and back into the house are paltry disturbances to the routine in comparison. The cats after a few hours actually liked the temporary new digs.

 

[HilltopperNole]

Got to spend time with my wife and son which is a rarity during football season.
Played golf which is also rare.
It was our bye week, so while most of the state lost games or have to play twice in a week we can carry on business as usual.

 

[DanC78]

That's a lot of refrigerators, and nice ones at that.

Free is rich!

 

[OrlandNole]

That's a lot of refrigerators, and nice ones at that.

Free is rich!

Agreed. Quite a humblebag. Well done, op.

 

[dero316]

Was deciding between having a built in backup generator installed in the spring or reverse wiring the breaker box and getting a (somewhat)portable generator. Irma decided for us and we got a Generac 5500 that we'll run to the breaker box to power the well, fridges and a few fans. Couldn't find the 30amp plugs to make my own cord to run through the dryer so we didn't have water when the power went out but it was only 13hrs and the tubs were full and plenty of frozen water.

 

[noleclone2]

For me, instead of the typical 10-15K in over priced appliances, flooring, furniture, landscaping, etc my wife always likes to blow our year end bonus on, I have her all primed to buy kick arse Natural Gas whole house standby generator.

 

[FSUTribe76]

That's a lot of refrigerators, and nice ones at that.

Free is rich!

I wasn't going to bring it up but that does seem like substantially too many fridges. I cook all the time and I only have a normal fridge and a wine fridge. I could probably also use a dedicated freezer as I could buy more bulk meat and freeze more fruit when I pick them, but that's about all I really think I'm "missing". I wouldn't even know what to do with the other five fridges. I do know Free entertains WAY more people than I do as I prefer privacy and my own comfort at home but even still....that's a lot of fridges. My inlaws have at least a Free amount of money as he was one of the inventors of a common anti cancer drug and is a current dean of a Med school and as such have to entertain a bit but even they just have a regular fridge, a freezer and a beer/beverage fridge by the pool and that's it.

 

[DanC78]

We have our normal fridge in the kitchen. I have a utility/beer fridge in the garage, and the just recently we bought a small mini fridge (and microwave) for our bedroom. It's purpose is to save us walks downstairs in the middle of the night getting bottles of milk and having to warm them up.

 

[seminoledq]

I spent a couple nights of my evacuation in Biloxi and won $1,800 playing craps. That should just about cover the damage I suffered.

Wish I would have thought to do your redneck water freezing. I ended up throwing out a bunch of meat and fish from the freezer.

How did the IRB area make out through the storm?

 

[Gonolz]

How did the IRB area make out through the storm?

Surprisingly well. It was evacuated because a direct hit with huge storm surge was anticipated. Irma moved just enough inland at the last minute that the winds weren't crazy high and the huge storm surge never materialized. There is a lot of debris (mostly trees, limbs, bushes, etc) everywhere, but structures seemed to hold up.

 

[PoopandBoogers]

One silver lining nobody's mentioned is that we all have ample supply to a decade's worth of free firewood. Thinking about snagging a few choice logs for firepits and the smoker.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

Free doing his part to combat global warming

 

[RTM58]

 

[Oclawaha]

After power came back on we cleaned the fridge. Hasn't been done since the last one a year ago. Probably won't be done again until the next one.

 

[321Nole]

Got to roam around my childhood neighborhood with my brother and son. Met the lady who moved into my grandmother's old house. Bonded with my brother, only to see his post in this thread that only talks about going to SF afterwards.

 

[Gonolz]

Got to roam around my childhood neighborhood with my brother and son. Met the lady who moved into my grandmother's old house. Bonded with my brother, only to see his post in this thread that only talks about going to SF afterwards.

I think he is a fan of Krystal and was offended by your post. Silver lining is that he won't invite you to eat at Krystal anymore.

 

[FreeFlyNole]

That's a lot of refrigerators, and nice ones at that.

Free is rich!

I will say that I have an inordinate amount of refrigeration capacity. However Poop, Cman and Desi (almost) have been to my house. Very normal house in a middle class neighborhood. The woman I bought it from was the sole heiress to Bernik's in Minnesota. Which is a 110 year old beer and soda distribution business, hence all the built in fridges.

I had the 19 cubic food freezer from the first time I bought half a cow, and I had one of the wine fridges. But, while I'm bragging, in addition to those two small wine fridges, I have a 1000 bottles in my wine room. Cooled, but not refrigerated.

I absconded to Atlanta for a few days too, and made out with some of those free braves tickets, and took the kids to Stone Mountain before they scratch the Confederated off of it. So that's another silver lining.

 

[DanC78]

I can't get past that you Cman and Poop hang out behind our backs...I didnt get the invite because of my spelling huh...dadgumit!!

I was thinking of taking the fam to the braves game as well, I still have my FL Id. I know it's 6 bucks a ticket, but I like free better!

 

[FSUTribe76]

I will say that I have an inordinate amount of refrigeration capacity. However Poop, Cman and Desi (almost) have been to my house. Very normal house in a middle class neighborhood. The woman I bought it from was the sole heiress to Bernik's in Minnesota. Which is a 110 year old beer and soda distribution business, hence all the built in fridges.

I had the 19 cubic food freezer from the first time I bought half a cow, and I had one of the wine fridges. But, while I'm bragging, in addition to those two small wine fridges, I have a 1000 bottles in my wine room. Cooled, but not refrigerated.

I absconded to Atlanta for a few days too, and made out with some of those free braves tickets, and took the kids to Stone Mountain before they scratch the Confederated off of it. So that's another silver lining.

That's an impressive amount of wine! I'm sure there are pretty highly respected restaurants that wouldn't touch that. When people visit they always say I'm an alcoholic for all the booze I've got but I'm probably more in the 80-100 bottle of wine range and 70-80 or so bottles of various liquors and liqueurs. I'm starting to collect wine by accident really, I usually buy 2-4 bottles from every winery I visit and we go to a LOT of wineries when we travel. And I only drink one or two bottles of wine a week split between my wife and I. And when we entertain of course several bottles disappear. So the moral of that story is it's starting to stack up. But I'll need another 10-20 years to catch up!

 

[TexSkills]

Silver lining for me is that I think, and hope, my wife got the idea of a 3rd kid out of her head. 2 toddlers running around a hot house with no power will do that I guess.

 

[dmm5157]

I will say that I have an inordinate amount of refrigeration capacity. However Poop, Cman and Desi (almost) have been to my house. Very normal house in a middle class neighborhood. The woman I bought it from was the sole heiress to Bernik's in Minnesota. Which is a 110 year old beer and soda distribution business, hence all the built in fridges.

I had the 19 cubic food freezer from the first time I bought half a cow, and I had one of the wine fridges. But, while I'm bragging, in addition to those two small wine fridges, I have a 1000 bottles in my wine room. Cooled, but not refrigerated.

I absconded to Atlanta for a few days too, and made out with some of those free braves tickets, and took the kids to Stone Mountain before they scratch the Confederated off of it. So that's another silver lining.

I'll be in Melbourne tomorrow night, got a work meeting Thursday morning so short trip. Moving October 14, hopefully things will be back to normal in the area by then.


As for Irma, we lucked out. Sent the kids up to parents house in Georgia and wife and I rode out the storm to make sure our houses here didn't get damaged. Few days without the kids was nice.

We never lost power, no limbs down. We did lose internet for a few days, which sucked. I had 15 gallons of gas and generator ready to go, never got to use it. Last year was out of power for 5 days with Hermine.

 

[Nolomite]

Yes, actually...


I attempted Calabrian oregano from a specialty importer, per a request from my business partner (we're setting up a pizza restaurant). Since I was in the States for only another week I ordered 20 "bags" of it - the oregano is still on the stalk, the whole bag of them weighs 50 grams. So, 20 of them still weigh less than 2 lbs. Timing was tight but do-able. I grudgingly accepted that shipping this 2lb box would set me back over $50.

I got an email the following morning stating that due to HURRICANE IRMA (every time she typed it, the twit hit her caps lock) that UPS pickup was interrupted and that would add an extra day. That would push the delivery date back to the day I left the States - cutting it too close for me. And I was not about to pay $77 for 2-day shipping of this box...that would be more than the product itself. For oregano.

So, I added a couple bags (they looked the same, they turned out to be smaller, 40 grams) from Amazon to an order I was putting together. Those bags of oregano-on-the-stalk turned out to be HUGE, I had to work hard to pack those 2 bags into my travel bag. If I'd have gotten 20 bags and spent all that money I'd have had to buy another duffel bag and pay the upcharge for a second bag, etc.

So Hurricane Irina (no caps-lock) saved me from buying what would have worked out to be the most expensive load of oregano in the world in 2017